IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/1186.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Historical Analysis of National Subjective Wellbeing using millions of Digitized Books

Author

Listed:
  • Hills, Thomas

    (Department of Psychology, University of Warwick)

  • Proto, Eugenio

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick, CAGE and IZA)

  • Sgroi, Daniel

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick, CAGE and Nuffield College, University of Oxford)

Abstract

We develop a new way to measure national subjective well-being across the very long run where traditional survey data on well-being is not available. Our method is based on quantitative analysis of digitized text from millions of books published over the past 200 years, long before the widespread availability of consistent survey data. The method uses psychological valence norms for thousands of words in different languages to compute the relative proportion of positive and negative language for four different nations (the USA, UK, Germany and Italy). We validate our measure against existing survey data from the 1970s onwards (when such data became available) showing that our measure is highly correlated with surveyed life satisfaction. We also validate our measure against historical trends in longevity and GDP (showing a positive relationship) and conflict (showing a negative relationship). Our measure allows a first look at changes in subjective well-being over the past two centuries, for instance highlighting the dramatic fall in well-being during the two World Wars and rise in relation to longevity.

Suggested Citation

  • Hills, Thomas & Proto, Eugenio & Sgroi, Daniel, 2019. "Historical Analysis of National Subjective Wellbeing using millions of Digitized Books," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1186, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:1186
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2019/twerp_1186_sgroi.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mike Thelwall & Kevan Buckley & Georgios Paltoglou, 2011. "Sentiment in Twitter events," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(2), pages 406-418, February.
    2. Robert J. MacCulloch & Rafael Di Tella & Andrew J. Oswald, 2001. "Preferences over Inflation and Unemployment: Evidence from Surveys of Happiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 335-341, March.
    3. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2008. "Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 39(1 (Spring), pages 1-102.
    4. Hodrick, Robert J & Prescott, Edward C, 1997. "Postwar U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, February.
    5. Jutta Bolt & Jan Luiten Zanden, 2014. "The Maddison Project: collaborative research on historical national accounts," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(3), pages 627-651, August.
    6. Eugenio Proto & Aldo Rustichini, 2013. "A Reassessment of the Relationship between GDP and Life Satisfaction," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(11), pages 1-10, November.
    7. Mike Thelwall & Kevan Buckley & Georgios Paltoglou, 2011. "Sentiment in Twitter events," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(2), pages 406-418, February.
    8. Daniel J. Benjamin & Ori Heffetz & Miles S. Kimball & Alex Rees-Jones, 2012. "What Do You Think Would Make You Happier? What Do You Think You Would Choose?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2083-2110, August.
    9. Anna Chmiel & Julian Sienkiewicz & Mike Thelwall & Georgios Paltoglou & Kevan Buckley & Arvid Kappas & Janusz A Hołyst, 2011. "Collective Emotions Online and Their Influence on Community Life," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(7), pages 1-8, July.
    10. M. Keith Chen, 2013. "The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 690-731, April.
    11. Jerven, Morten, 2012. "An unlevel playing field: national income estimates and reciprocal comparison in global economic history," Journal of Global History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 107-128, March.
    12. Angus Deaton, 2008. "Income, Health, and Well-Being around the World: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 53-72, Spring.
    13. Stephen Broadberry & Bruce Campbell & Alexander Klein & Mark Overton & Bas van Leeuwen, 2012. "British Economic Growth, 1270-1870: an output-based approach," Studies in Economics 1203, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    14. Easterlin, Richard A., 1974. "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 111773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. M. Keith Chen, 2011. "The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1820, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Dec 2012.
    16. Peter Dodds & Christopher Danforth, 2010. "Measuring the Happiness of Large-Scale Written Expression: Songs, Blogs, and Presidents," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 441-456, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brodeur, Abel & Clark, Andrew E. & Fleche, Sarah & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2021. "COVID-19, lockdowns and well-being: Evidence from Google Trends," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    2. Ali Kabiri & Harold James & John Landon-Lane & David Tuckett & Rickard Nyman, 2020. "The Role of Sentiment in the Economy: 1920 to 1934," CESifo Working Paper Series 8336, CESifo.
    3. Nicholas Crafts, 2022. "The 15‐Hour Week: Keynes's Prediction Revisited," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(356), pages 815-829, October.
    4. Carlos Álvarez-Nogal & Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2025. "Subjective well-being and inequality in Spain’s decline," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 19(1), pages 1-27, January.
    5. Daniel Gallardo-Albarrán, 2024. "Capital, Productivity, and Human Welfare Since 1870," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 3, pages 2023-2048, Springer.
    6. Alessandro Sontuoso & Sudeep Bhatia, 2021. "A notion of prominence for games with natural‐language labels," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), pages 283-312, January.
    7. Sudeep Bhatia & Lukasz Walasek & Paul Slovic & Howard Kunreuther, 2021. "The More Who Die, the Less We Care: Evidence from Natural Language Analysis of Online News Articles and Social Media Posts," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 179-203, January.
    8. Jiang, Xiongfei & Xiong, Long & Bai, Ling & Zhao, Na & Zhang, Jiu & Xia, Ke & Deng, Kai & Zheng, Bo, 2021. "Quantifying the social structure of elites in ancient China," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 573(C).
    9. Ali Kabiri & Harold James & John Landon‐Lane & David Tuckett & Rickard Nyman, 2023. "The role of sentiment in the US economy: 1920 to 1934," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(1), pages 3-30, February.
    10. Christoph Kronenberg, 2021. "A New Measure of 19th Century US Suicides," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 157(2), pages 803-815, September.
    11. Ying-Ting Wang, 2024. "Coresidence and its Effect on the Life Satisfaction of Unmarried Adults and Their Parents: Evidence from Taiwan," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 581-602, April.
    12. Tykhonov, Vyacheslav & van Leeuwen, Bas, 2021. "Regional sentiments in Covid tweets in the Netherlands before and during peak infections," MPRA Paper 110879, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Ifcher, John & Zarghamee, Homa & Goff, Sandra H., 2021. "Happiness in the Lab: What Can Be Learned about Subjective Well-Being from Experiments?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 943, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    14. Rossouw, Stephanie & Greyling, Talita, 2020. "Big Data and Happiness," GLO Discussion Paper Series 634, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    15. Mohsen Joshanloo & Veljko Jovanović & Tim Taylor, 2019. "A multidimensional understanding of prosperity and well-being at country level: Data-driven explorations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-31, October.
    16. Alexandre Hyafil & Nicolas Baumard, 2022. "Evoked and transmitted culture models: Using bayesian methods to infer the evolution of cultural traits in history," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(4), pages 1-21, April.
    17. Bai, Ling & Xiong, Long & Zhao, Na & Xia, Ke & Jiang, Xiong-Fei, 2022. "Dynamical structure of social map in ancient China," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 607(C).
    18. Lushi Chen & Tao Gong & Michal Kosinski & David Stillwell & Robert L Davidson, 2017. "Building a profile of subjective well-being for social media users," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(11), pages 1-15, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & George Ward & Femke De Keulenaer & Bert Van Landeghem & Georgios Kavetsos & Michael I. Norton, 2018. "The Asymmetric Experience of Positive and Negative Economic Growth: Global Evidence Using Subjective Well-Being Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(2), pages 362-375, May.
    2. Proto, Eugenio & Rustichini, Aldo, 2015. "Life satisfaction, income and personality," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 17-32.
    3. Eugenio Proto & Aldo Rustichini, 2013. "A Reassessment of the Relationship between GDP and Life Satisfaction," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(11), pages 1-10, November.
    4. Stefano Bartolini & Francesco Sarracino, 2014. "It's not the economy, stupid! How social capital and GDP relate to happiness over time," Papers 1411.2138, arXiv.org.
    5. BARTOLINI Stefano & SARRACINO Francesco, 2011. "Happy for How Long? How Social Capital and GDP relate to Happiness over Time," LISER Working Paper Series 2011-60, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    6. Layard, Richard & Mayraz, Guy & Nickell, Stephen, 2009. "Does relative income matter? Are the critics right?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28594, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. O'Donnell, Gus & Oswald, Andrew J., 2015. "National well-being policy and a weighted approach to human feelings," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 59-70.
    8. Benjamin Schalembier, 2016. "The Impact of Exposure to Other Countries on Life Satisfaction: An International Application of the Relative Income Hypothesis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 221-239, August.
    9. DECANCQ, Koen & FLEURBAEY, Marc & SCHOKKAERT, Erik, 2014. "Inequality, income, and well-being," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014018, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    10. Eugenio Proto & Aldo Rustichini, 2012. "Life Satisfaction, Household Income and Personality Theory," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 453, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    11. Diane Coyle & Leonard Nakamura, 2019. "Towards a Framework for Time Use, Welfare and Household-centric Economic Measurement," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2019-01, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    12. Gregor Gonza & Anže Burger, 2017. "Subjective Well-Being During the 2008 Economic Crisis: Identification of Mediating and Moderating Factors," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(6), pages 1763-1797, December.
    13. Bart Los & Marcel P. Timmer, 2020. "Measuring Bilateral Exports of Value Added: A Unified Framework," NBER Chapters, in: Challenges of Globalization in the Measurement of National Accounts, pages 389-421, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Blanchflower, David G & Oswald, Andrew, 2011. "International Happiness," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 39, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    15. Sechel, Cristina, 2021. "The share of satisfied individuals: A headcount measure of aggregate subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 373-394.
    16. repec:old:wpaper:342 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Kaiser, Caspar F. & Vendrik, Maarten C.M., 2018. "Different Versions of the Easterlin Paradox: New Evidence for European Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 11994, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W. & Shields, Michael A. & Sinha, Kompal, 2015. "A lifecycle perspective of stock market performance and wellbeing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 237-250.
    19. Heinz Welsch & Jan Kühling, 2011. "Comparative Economic Performance and Institutional Change in OECD Countries: Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data," Working Papers V-342-11, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2011.
    20. Abel Brodeur & Sarah Flèche, 2019. "Neighbors' Income, Public Goods, and Well‐Being," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(2), pages 217-238, June.
    21. Levinson, Arik, 2012. "Valuing public goods using happiness data: The case of air quality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(9-10), pages 869-880.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:1186. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.